For decades, attempts have been made to develop a system for “real-time” direct reading, non-invasive measurement of glucose levels in the bloodstream. To date, these efforts have been unsuccessful primarily due to the inherent nature of glucose itself, which readily dissolves in blood, as well as the containment of the bloodstream in the human body, making a direct, non-invasive measurement of glucose residing in the bloodstream extremely difficult.
Historically, optical methods have been favored in attempts to measure blood glucose levels utilizing visible light, infra-red light, or by attempting to detect polarization changes caused by varying glucose levels in the blood. These efforts have repeatedly proven fruitless, as were other attempts at direct, non-invasive measurement of blood glucose levels.
Presently available continuous blood glucose monitoring systems, in reality, actually measure interstitial fluid glucose levels rather than directly measuring blood glucose levels. As a result, such “blood glucose” systems or meters do not provide “real time” blood glucose readings. In addition, such systems inherently suffer from a substantial time lag—generally about 20 minutes with the correlation of interstitial fluid measurements relative to blood glucose readings.
Although generally recognized that blood glucose levels have been able to be measured fairly accurately via microwave means in vitro under controlled laboratory conditions, prior art measuring equipment has lacked the ability to make these measurements in vivo. While clinically useful measurements may be possible in such fixed laboratory conditions, a mechanism and embodiment that allows for actual non-invasive blood glucose readings “in the field” has heretofore not existed, to say nothing about the automatic calibration mechanisms that are needed to develop these simple laboratory measuring devices into a system that is suitable for everyday use with actual living beings who exhibit individual variations and characteristics from one another.
In view of the foregoing, there is a need for an actual (direct reading) blood glucose measurement system that is non-invasive and can be used in vivo without exhibiting the inherent measurement variation and time lag to determine blood glucose measurements generally associated with prior art “blood glucose” meters that are actually “interstitial fluid” measuring devices. Accordingly, it is a general object of the present invention to provide a novel blood glucose tracking system that provides a new, optimized and efficient approach to blood glucose measurement, tracking and monitoring, that is non-invasive, directly measures blood glucose, and can be done in vivo without measurement variation and time lag.